


14000605

by Thunderfire69



Series: IronStrange Week 2019 [7]
Category: Avengers, Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Doctor Strange - Fandom, Iron Man - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Arguments, Endgame Fix-It, Forgiveness, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, but it’s also not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderfire69/pseuds/Thunderfire69
Summary: My prompt fill for day seven of IronStrange week.Stephen chooses a selfish future.





	14000605

He’d seen a lot of things in those futures, some things he never wanted to think of again and others he wished he could dwell in forever. And he’d been selfish with the future he  _ had  _ picked, but he couldn’t help himself. Well, okay, there was only a chance that this might be the future he wanted; another future was triggered the exact same way, but it didn’t turn out the way Stephen wanted.  _ Now is the moment of truth _ , he thought as he took a deep breath, and knocked lightly on the door of Tony’s lab. He’d been directed down here by Bruce (the exact same directions in both futures) and Tony took the exact amount of time to answer that he had when Stephen had looked into those futures.

 

“What- oh. Stephen.” The way Tony spoke his name made Stephen’s heart sink; it was as if Tony had come across something venomous and he wanted it gone asap. 

 

“Tony-”

 

“What are you doing here?” Tony’s voice was harsh. 

 

“I came to explain.”

 

“Explain what, exactly? Why my wife is  _ dead _ ? Why Nat had to be sacrificed?” Tony took an angry step closer to the sorcerer. “Why Thanos snapped Sam in half like a pencil?”

 

“Tony-” Stephen began to interject, but the shorter man was too angry to listen, or to care.

 

“Steve left us to grow old with some woman from back in the nineteen hundreds! He handed over the title of Captain America to my parents’  _ murderer _ . One of Thanos’ minions crushed the skull of my best friend with his bare fucking hands. And to top it off, Morgan, my daughter, ended up in the line of fire too. The  _ only  _ family I have left is Peter, and I don’t trust that you won’t take him away from me too.”

 

“It was the only way, Tony.”

 

“Yeah, no,  _ bullshit. _ You can’t expect me to believe you looked into  _ all _ of those fucking futures and this was the  _ only  _ one where we won?” Tony jabbed angrily at Stephen with the vibranium arm that the king of wakanda himself had gifted him the moment he found out Tony had had to have his arm amputated. “You chose this for your own selfish gain, whatever the  _ fuck  _ that was.”

 

Words died on the tip of Stephen’s tongue. “I could never wish any harm upon your family, Tony.”

 

“Oh  _ yeah _ ? Then why in the name of actual  _ god  _ did you choose this timeline?”

 

Stephen swallowed, and his voice was small as he said his next words. “It was the only timeline where you didn’t die.”

 

“And in those timelines where I  _ did  _ die, did my family survive?” Tony asked, venom in his tone. Stephen just dropped his head, staying silent. Tony studied his expression for a moment, then stepped back.

 

“They did, didn’t they?” Tony’s voice was soft, but there was a underlying threat in his tone.

 

“Yes,” Stephen muttered quietly, not daring to look up.

 

“Then  _ why  _ did you choose this absolute fucking  _ hell  _ of a future?” Tony spat, his tone rising again.

 

“Because over the course of looking into those futures, I fell in love with you!” Stephen burst out. Tony stared at him.

 

“You’re joking, right?” Tony asked, as if Stephen  _ would  _ joke about something like this. After a moment, Tony seemed to freeze. “You’re  _ not  _ joking. That- that’s why- you chose this future because-”

 

“Because I’m in love with you?” Stephen lifted his head, his voice steady as he spoke. “Yes.”

 

Tony took a step back, shaking his head, and he let out a humourless laugh. “You chose to  _ sacrifice  _ my five year old daughter, my wife, my best friend and two of my teammates because you’re in love with me?”

 

It sounded so much worse when Tony put it like that. Stephen’s gaze dropped again.

 

“It was selfish and stupid and… I wish I could say I’d change my decision if I could, but… I’d be lying.”

 

“Get out.” Tony’s voice was steady as he spoke, and Stephen’s heart sank further. This wasn’t the future he’d wanted at all; as far as he could see, this was leading into the future where Tony hated him for the rest of his days. They never spoke again after this point, and Stephen knew he had to do  _ something  _ to try and fix it.

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

 

“Get. Out.” Tony repeated, his voice rising slightly. Stephen gave a small nod, resigning himself to his fate. As he stepped out the door to Tony’s lab, he turned back to say a final thing.

 

“I shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with you. I shouldn’t have let my emotions cloud my decisions. I understand if you hate me.” 

 

Then he turned away, and made his way out. Bruce shot him a semi-apologetic glance as the dejected sorcerer made his way out of the Compound, but Stephen knew that if Bruce had overheard even some of their argument (which he did in this future, that much Stephen knew), then he’d be on Tony’s side. Blinking back the tears that were threatening to well up in his eyes, Stephen opened a portal to the Sanctum.

  
  


Stephen allowed himself a week to wallow in his grief. It was selfish for him to grieve after what he’d done, but he couldn’t find the strength to shove his feelings aside and just get on with his life. When he did head back out into the world, charting out who might be a potential threat to earth, he ran into none other than Peter Parker, out on his patrols as Spider-Man. Except that the kid was getting beaten up by a bunch of criminals.

 

In the kid’s defence, they did have some pretty high tech weapons. Stephen didn’t like Peter’s chances, though, so he stepped in and helped out; by helped out, he meant he sent all the criminals to the mirror dimension.

 

“I had that under control!” Peter protested, sounding annoyed.

 

“Didn’t want to see you get hurt, kid,” Stephen replied, opening a portal to another part of the city. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”

 

Then he stepped through, and closed the portal behind him. He glanced around, stepped into a side alley and let himself sink down against the wall of the alley and there he began to quietly cry. Seeing Peter just reminded him of Tony, who he’d lost forever because of his own stupid foolishness. It took an hour before he could compose himself and head back out into the city.

  
  


It was a good month later that some foolish villain thought he could take on the heroes of New York. Most had laid low after the whole Thanos thing, but this guy seemed overconfident. Stephen helped the Avengers in their fight, more out of duty to the Sanctum than anything else.

 

There was one point where Tony was pinned by the villain and Stephen rushed forwards to send a spell at the villain that sent him reeling backwards, freeing Tony from his clutches; Tony glanced briefly in Stephen’s direction before flying back into the fight.

 

It was only shortly after that that the villain knocked Peter from the web he was swinging on, and Stephen only just managed to portal himself over and get a shield up in time to stop what would have surely been a killing blow.

 

“What did I tell you about getting hurt?” Stephen asked Peter, who just looked up at him, mask half torn off, his expression one of terror and awe. Stephen sighed, exasperated. “I told you to keep out of trouble, kid, so  _ please _ try to do that. You’re all Tony has left. He can’t lose you.”

 

Then Stephen portalled back into the fight, leaving Peter laying dumbfounded on the ground for a few moments before he, too, swung back into the fight.

  
  
  


It was a week later that Tony stumbled into the Sanctum, bleeding from a nasty cut on his forehead.

 

“You’re not an easy man to find, Strange,” he said, sounding utterly exhausted, and he gestured to the cut on his forehead. “Some idiot thought he could stop me from getting in here wielding just a kitchen knife.”

 

“That would be Wong,” Stephen replied calmly, closing the book he’d been reading. “You just knocked him out?”

 

“What do I look like, a savage?” Tony asked, exasperated.

 

“A little, with all that blood on you,” Stephen said, fighting to keep his voice calm. He didn’t ever remember Tony coming into the Sanctum in either of the futures he’d seen; was it possible this was a future he’d missed when looking through them?

 

“Look, I came here to tell you I’m still mad,” Tony began. “But… I think I believe you.”

 

“What?” Stephen stood up suddenly, nearly dropping the book he’d been reading moments earlier.

 

“Peter told me about you rescuing him from those guys with the high tech weapons. And then I saw you protect him in that battle last week… I really don’t think you would want to harm my family.” Tony met Stephen’s gaze. “Peter told me what you said to him, too.”

 

“I only said what was true,” Stephen replied, calmer than he felt.

 

Tony took a pace forward and held out his hand. “How about we try to start over?”

 

Stephen took Tony’s hand, cautiously shaking it. “Alright.”

 

“Maybe one day I can find out what you saw in those futures that made you fall for me,” Tony added, a small smile on his face.

 

“Maybe,” Stephen replied, the ghost of a smile on his own lips. Maybe this future wasn’t going to be as bad as he thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Ending this week on a semi-angsty fic. Thanks for reading through my stuff for IronStrange week, and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
